Recently, I talked to my grandsons and they told me that the schools don’t celebrate Christmas parties anymore.

Christmas was a very important holiday when I was in school. As a young person, I used to make Christmas ornaments at school in December. Students would bring the ornaments they had made to their parents to place on the Christmas trees. I was proud to have made the ornament that was placed on our tree.

That activity encouraged us to do things.

What is wrong with the schools today that they do not celebrate the holidays anymore? Such celebration teaches children to make things that they can share.

The school system is wrong if it doesn’t celebrate the holidays in school. The children will lose their joy. The children should be taught about America’s holidays. How else will any newcomers learn about those holidays if the schools don’t teach them?

Society needs to wake up. Don’t neglect the good times people had growing up with holiday celebrations. School policy should change to include the celebration of Christmas and other holidays.

It is my thought that people are being discriminated against by not celebrating holidays in the schools.

School officials took prayer out of schools and now there are more and more people in jails.

Little by little, people are losing their freedoms. This is our United States of America. Teach the children about all the holidays.

Mary Ann Michaud, Lewiston

Editor’s note: The Sun Journal contacted an official at the state Department of Education who responded that policy regarding school celebration of holidays is set at the local level. Superintendent Bill Webster of the Lewiston Public Schools responded to a Sun Journal inquiry with the statement, “By law, public schools are prohibited from promoting one religion over another. All our schools recognize the holiday season in some way with their students and do so in a way that is respectful of the different backgrounds of students in our schools. Almost one-third of our students (in Lewiston) are Muslim, Jewish or some other non-Christian religion.”